Okay, so it's been a hot minute. Sorry about that. 2025 was rougher than I thought it would be. I'm fine, though. In the meantime, I got a huge backlog.
It's been a hot minute since I last updated here after the hurricane. Forgive me! ^^; We got our roof fixed, but still have a hole in my room. After the roof was taken care of, a Birthday cruise planned years advance happened in December and, of course, there was Christmas. Afterward, my window that broke from a hail storm a while back was finally fixed this month. So, I'm longer freezing my tail off.
Most recently, I found some old pre-2017(ish) sketches in a worn notebook that I'll likely be redrawing digitally.
Recently, I asked myself, "Did EA patent The Sims?" It didn't take long for me to figure it out, yes. Yes, indeed, they have. Quite recently as well. Explains why no one has been able to compete with them, despite the Sims 4 being well past its prime now. But, then, that got me wondering about expired patents and using that to get references for drawing objects that I could have my characters use.
Whatever is expired is in the public domain. Unlike copyright, patents are no longer enforced within a 14 to 20-year protection period, depending on the type. During my trial and error, I figured out that anything made within the last century and mid-2000s (which covers a damn lot) is fair game.
Now, I was looking for design patents, but I didn't realize that at the time, and I was just searching for whatever. When I finally figured it out, I discovered those protections last only 14 years, it's methods behind them that have an additional decade. Gives me a good idea of what to look for.
Like I said, I'm searching for design patents to use as a reference in drawing objects I've never seen up close or haven't in a long, long time. They're basically public blueprints. For example, I love the iMac G4. However, I've only been around it in person less than a dozen times compared to the G3 and G5. I'm sure it was quite common back then, but, to me, it is a rare gem. Now, all three designs are in the public domain. Naturally, the G4 will be a part of my character's daily life. Beyond Apple, I also searched for Sony and discovered their PlayStation 1-3 and even their motion controllers (expires soon).
Beyond the fictional realm, we all build on what came before to create something original. There are millions upon millions of expired patents out there for the taking. Not just the famous ones, because companies want all their bases covered, no matter how outlandish the concept is. Which means I'm sure there are thousands from just the 2000s and 90s alone that we, as individuals, can 3D print and just make our own. I've discovered plenty of services, such as BDTwo or Expatents, that let you search for recently upcoming or recently expired ones as well.
You never know what you'll find.
Wuffle is a series of web comics by Piti Yindee. He personally waived all copyright protections thanks to Creative Common's CC0 license, and this carried over to a comic book collection that might have had limited publication. It was later posted on Archive.org, both as PDFs and as uncompressed images with extras. The volumes were named Years, and the second included a short story: There's Something About Foxxo. Over the course of a week and one hurricane later, I rewrote the story from scratch, word-for-word, from PDF to pure text, split it into chapters and published it in ePub format, perfect for Apple or Google Play Books, etc. I did it both for practice and to help Wuffle reach a wider audience.
The story follows Foxxo as he attempts to secure a deal for a watermill to help the village and increase the production of his bakery. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned when his friend and butler, Joe, takes a day off after the two discover he is negotiating with a hard-boiled General.
Unfortunately, the comic collection was taken down, likely due to copyright, despite the PDFs clearly stating there is a waiver. I even verified it with Yindee - they're all legit. Hell, even the website has a badge stating "0 Public Domain". Regardless, I was able to host it on Google Drive for the time being, with the newly rewritten story included now!
So, uh, I just experienced a hurricane. Well, at least the last remnants of the eye of the storm. It was windy, to say the least. It looked like it was heading west when the massive tail stretched across the entire US, thinking it would die down before going further inland, but nope, that was literally its path! For us, it was just windy as hell, with a lot of trees falling in our backyards. Thankfully, we live in a hilly area, so no one was hurt, and power lines are underground, meaning all we dealt with was a few brownouts. Others... Not so lucky. Much of the upstate is still without power. Hope they're doing okay.
Despite the broken roof and ceiling that thankfully got patched with tarp this afternoon, that coulda been worse. O_o Like, when we first moved to Southern Hellhole and experienced an ice storm that did take us offline - right when I got my new computer, too.